


hippocratic oath

by 4cky



Category: Samurai of Hyuga (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: (its kinda one-sided Momoko/Ronin and BOY does she feel guilty about it, F/M, Gen, Medical Procedures, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 03:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4cky/pseuds/4cky
Summary: Kaito has been hurt very badly by his former love, but first and foremost by life. [Momoko Hayami musing]





	hippocratic oath

_He’s not a good person. Wounds like this don’t happen to good people._ Dr. Hayami told herself this over and over as her needle threaded the ronin’s flesh, filling the hall with the scent of burnt flesh along with the already present iron smell of blood. _But that’s fine, isn’t it? You don’t deserve good people. You’re not a good person._ And then she reminded herself that an infatuation with someone, especially the one she was stitching up, was stupid. Unprofessional. She was a doctor, dammit, and she couldn’t expect to be treated like one if she acted like this. 

Focus on the cuts. They were not kind, careful ones, they were jagged. Harsh, even. But they always missed the vital points, the arteries that would have killed the ronin in a moment, the organs that would’ve seeped into the body cavity and caused a slow and agonizing death. Methodical, really. She would have been impressed with them if they hadn’t hurt someone (she)the group had relied on so much.

The wound itself appeared to be a quick scrawl of the kanji for obedient. “Jun,” she mumbled aloud.

What she hadn’t expected was an audience to hear it. There was a quiet sob behind her, a child’s–no, Masashi Hashimoto’s cry. She nearly tore half an inch from her patient’s flesh when she heard it. Which only made the poor boy hiccup down his next cry. Right, he’d nearly died at the hand of that other man, hadn’t he? By the time everyone had arrived, the child was bleeding from a thin cut on his neck, but nothing so bad that he needed stiches. Nothing so bad that he would die. Momoko would have been more careful with her reading if she’d known he was still in the room. “I-is that fool–Kaito, is he going to be alright?”

 _Of course he is. He’s survived worse than this, sepsis from those third degree burns on his hands, bacterial infection from that wound on his face, every scar tells a story of how he kept soldiering on despite the pain._ She put on her most placid, doctorly smile as she said, “He’ll be fine. Some rest and I’m certain he’ll be back at the bar with Hachirobei-san in no time.”

“That idiot, how dare he…” the child’s eyebrows scrunched together, ending his sentence in something that despite all of the sadness his words held, seemed like a pout on his face. _How dare he nearly die_ , would have been the next words she’d guessed. If he was slowed down by this, it would have only been because of his age. He’d taken lumps far more severe than this in his past.

She washed her hands in the red, red water that she’d used this whole time. Perhaps she could get a little more quiet time and concentration if… “Hashimoto-kun, would you be comfortable dumping out my water and fetching me more?”

The look on his face said that he never wanted to see his bodyguard bleed again, but his eyes were begging to be useful (somehow, some way). He said nothing as his small hands grabbed onto the basin, careful to slowly pull it up and away from the doctor and Kaito. And once again, the two of them were alone.

Fingers wrapped around the absent bottle of alcohol Hachirobei had given her when she asked (“I’d need a drink too.”), pouring it over the needle. She could, she supposed, pour it over the wound, but that might only exacerbate the healing process. Instead, the needle carefully strung his flesh together, careful and aseptic. _At least you can’t make it worse. Don’t even know if that’s possible, at this point._ “You know,” She started, watching his face as she stitched him together like a worn out kimono, “if you leave a rotten fruit with the rest of bowl, the rest of them will go with the single bad one.”

And that was why you had to throw it out. Because decay attracts more decay, bad turns everything around it worse. Perhaps that was why they’d ended up in the same group. He was rotten long before they’d met, just as she was rotten long before she met him. But it didn’t stop the thoughts from sinking further into the crevices of her brain. Like attracts like. One bad fruit spoils the rest.  


She knotted the final stitch across the man’s abdomen and doused the whole work in booze. A noise from him, a sharp intake, rather than the shallow breathing that had occupied whatever she could call this. Not surgery. Nothing she did could ever be called proper surgery. (Just like the work she did could never really be called doctoring, could it?)

(Above all else, do no harm.)

Blood always felt so sticky on her hands if she didn’t wash it regularly. Staining her hands red, like an overripe berry. That was, of course, when the noble shugenja decided to return, sloshing the clean water upon the clean tatami of the ken raijingu-ryū dojo. His face fell as he realized she was finished (not useful, after all, of course, of course), but he set it next to her all the same. “Thank you, Hashimoto-kun. I’m sure Kaito-san would have thanked you too.”

Her words, intended to comfort, seemed to hurt rather than help. He looked away from her, from the man in front of her, mumbling, “You’re welcome,” before he ran off to the rest of the group. Of course he did. He was a good boy, which meant he had no place in the rotten world that Kaito and Momoko had sunk themselves into. Her knuckles ached, but she doused the pain and blood with the fresh water that the shugenja had brought, scrubbing the dried blood from the crevices in her fingerprints. Her eyes caught sight of the wound again. Obedient. Jun.

The name of the man he’d loved. Maybe the only one. Something like jealousy bubbled up inside her stomach and she was disgusted with herself. _You’re his doctor, Hayami. Act like it._


End file.
